RFK Jr.'s Latest Childhood Vaccine Schedule Change Draws Lawsuit (1)

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule triggered a legal challenge from leading health groups that call the move “the most egregious, reckless, and dangerous” of immunization related actions undertaken by the Trump administration.

Filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others, the challenge marks the latest turn in an ongoing battle by the groups against Kennedy and the US Department of Health and Human Services over controversial actions to limit vaccinations.

This most recent challenge comes in the form of an amended complaint that AAP is requesting to file in an ongoing case over Kennedy’s earlier changes to a key vaccination panel. It takes issue with the HHS’ January change to the childhood vaccine schedule, in which the department endorsed fewer shots.

According to the complaint, Kennedy and the HHS in making the changes “failed to consider important factors such as whether the changes to the Childhood Schedule would lead to increases in serious illness and death due to vaccine-preventable illnesses, or increased burden on the American healthcare system, or increased financial burden on American families.”

The complaint claims that Kennedy’s change to the childhood vaccine schedule violates the Administrative Procedure Act as he and others hadn’t considered appropriate data and offered a satisfactory explanation for taking action. AAP and its fellow plaintiffs are calling on the court to block the HHS from implementing the new schedule.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that the lawsuit “is a baseless attempt to litigate for the interests of the organization’s top corporate donors, which make virtually every vaccine across the CDC immunization schedules.”

The lawsuit initially challenged Kennedy’s changes to staffing of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine matters.

Nixon said that “AAP is angry that CDC eliminated corporate influence in vaccine recommendations by reconstituting the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with leading physicians and public health experts.”

The case is American Academy of Pediatrics v. Kennedy, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-11916, fourth amended complaint 1/19/26.